


Friends with the Rain

by Livster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Crimes & Criminals, Detectives, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Little Sisters, Siblings, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 06:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9371825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livster/pseuds/Livster
Summary: Astraea lived her life in the shadow of her older siblings. She always wanted to be as smart as them and as loved as them, but she never was. She was the last of the Holmes children to be born so her parents, although they loved her, counted down the days until she left the house so they could retire.Competition ran through her veins. Sherlock always wanted to be smarter than Mycroft and vice versa, so it was no different with Astraea wanting to be smarter than the both of them. The sibling rivalry ran deep in the Holmes family.Astraea eventually decided that instead of competing with them, she should learn from them. And that might just make her smarter than both her siblings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first legit fanfiction (I've written so many since the 5th grade that I've never done anything with) but I feel good about it so I decided to actually post one! I'm still working on the title and I'm not too sure how many chapters I want it to be but I'm planning it out and I'm excited.
> 
> I don't want this to just be my character inserted in the episodes. I want her to have her own story arc and her own conflicts so her life doesn't just revolve around her brothers. I really want to work on developing Astraea as her own character and person that doesn't revolve around what's canon on the show.

Astraea sat in the back seat of the taxi watching the rain drip onto the window. She fiddled with the charm on the bracelet her brother had given her for her birthday a few months prior. Sherlock wasn’t fond of buying people gifts, but he always bought one for Astraea since she happened to be his favorite sibling. Mycroft didn’t complain though, since the man had everything he wanted already. He was practically bathing in money, so if he really wanted something, he could just buy it for himself. He didn’t need someone else to buy it for him.

“221B Baker Street you said?” the cabbie asked. “Isn’t that where Sherlock Holmes lives?”

“You’ve heard of him?” Astraea asked.

“I’ve met him before. He convinced the police I wasn’t a murderer,” the cabbie replied. “You his friend or somethin’?”

“I’m his sister,” Astraea replied. The cab driver raised an eyebrow into the mirror. Astraea wasn’t one to continue a conversation passed what she felt was it’s natural run, so she didn’t say another word for the rest of the ride. She admired the rain instead.

It might have been mawkish, but she had always loved the rain. Ever since she was a little girl, she was happier on stormy days. She loved putting on her rain boots and jumping around in the puddles. It was as if the rain was her friend, her only friend, since the other kids didn’t want to have anything to do with her. The rain would relieve her of her natural state of ennui.

The cab came to a screeching halt and Astraea flew forward, almost right through the seat in front of her, as the cabbie yelled obscenities at the men who had run just inches in front of the cab. Astraea looked through the window and sighed knowing exactly who those men were. “You can let me out right here,” she told the cabbie as she handed him the money. “Thanks.”

She ignored his confused look as she exited the cab and walked towards her brother who was standing on the sidewalk with his blonde companion. Neither of them had an umbrella even a hood so they were soaking wet. Astraea was also lacking both of those things. Times like these she wished she carried an umbrella around all the time like Mycroft did. The cab drove away, splashing water onto Astraea’s feet as she approached Sherlock.

“Sherlock Holmes what do you think you’re doing running through the street like a madman?” Astraea asked her big brother. “Didn’t anybody teach you to look both ways before you cross the street or were you absent that day from school?” He could’ve run in front of any cab, but it just happened to be the one his sister was sitting inside. Sherlock didn’t believe in coincidences though, that was mostly Mycroft’s fault, so he didn’t question it.

“I texted you exactly three hours ago and the drive from your flat to mine is only about half an hour,” Sherlock said. “I took into account the traffic at the time so it only should have taken you forty-seven minutes to get to my flat.”

“Did you forget that I have a job?” Astraea asked. “You can’t expect me to drop everything to help you with a case.” Sherlock often called upon her for help with his cases and Astraea usually helped if she wasn't doing anything else. She did question though, whether he actually required her help or if he just wanted an excuse to spend time with her. Sherlock was such a difficult person to understand. Either way, she did have fun solving cases.

“Since when did you put your job before family?” Sherlock asked.

“You must be John Watson, I’m Astraea, his sister,” Astraea said, turning to John and ignoring her brother’s question. She observed that their faces were wet with not only the rain, but with sweat. “What exactly have you two been doing?”

“Chasing a murderer. We’re heading to the flat now,” Sherlock answered. “You would know that if you showed up on time.” Astraea rolled her eyes and walked with the two men to her brother’s flat. She didn’t like walking, but at least it shaved some money off the cab fare.

As they walked, Astraea occasionally glanced at John, trying to deduce like her brother could. Sherlock had years of practice and Astraea had only just started learning, so she wasn’t very skilled. She wanted to be good at it though; she wanted to be like her brother. She lived her entire life in the shadow of her older siblings.

“That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” John said as they walked into the flat. Sherlock draped his coat over the bottom of the bannister before leaning against the wall, still catching his breath.

“And you invaded Afghanistan,” Sherlock said causing the two of them to laugh. Astraea took her coat off and walked upstairs into the living room while Sherlock spoke to John, only to be greeted by Lestrade and various other policemen.

“He didn’t kill anyone did he?” was the first thing Astraea asked as she sat down. Greg shook his head no. “Is he doing drugs again?” Astraea knew about Sherlock’s occasional drug habit but it usually only happened when there weren’t any cases for him to solve, or if there was a really big and complicated case he felt he couldn’t solve.

“I sure hope not,” Greg replied. “He’s withholding evidence for a case.” Astraea nodded in understanding and watched as the officers looked through every inch of Sherlock’s flat. She eventually stood up, walking to the fridge and finding a water bottle behind the bags of fingernails and toes. She didn’t care to listen to Sherlock attempting to convince the police he was clean. “We’ve found Rachel.”

“Who’s Rachel?” Astraea asked. Sherlock then remembered that he had not yet briefed his sister on the case she was supposed to be helping him with.

“Latest victim carved Rachel into the floorboards as she was dying,” Sherlock said before turning back to Greg. “So, who is she?”

“Jennifer Wilson’s only daughter. She’s dead; she died fourteen years ago. Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter,” Lestrade answered. Sherlock and Astraea were both silent for a second before Astraea decided to ask a question.

“Why would she write her dead daughter’s name? It was ages ago, she should be over it,” Astraea said. She received a few disgusted looks from the officers causing her to realize that maybe what she said was wrong.

“Why would she think of her daughter in her last moments? Is the psychopath thing hereditary?” Anderson asked.

“You might want to refrain from having children, Anderson. Your stupid might get passed down,” Astraea retorted. John and Lestrade, along with several of the officers, laughed as Anderson turned around and continued looking through Sherlock’s belongings.

“Your taxi’s here, Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson said as she walked through the doorway.

“I didn’t order a taxi. Go away,” Sherlock said, dismissing the old woman. He stood still for a second, making it obvious that he was thinking. “Shut up, everybody shut up! Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t breathe. I’m trying to think. Anderson, face the other way, you’re putting me off.”

“What? My face is?” Anderson asked before reluctantly turning around.

Astraea didn’t want to interrupt her brother’s thinking by talking so she raised her hand and waited for him to acknowledge her. “She used her daughter’s name as a password. People always do that,” Astraea said when Sherlock looked her way.

“Oh,” Sherlock replied as he realized something. “Oh, you’re so clever, I couldn’t have asked for a better sister!” He ran over to Astraea and kissed her forehead before sitting at his desk. Everyone sat a bit confused as to what epiphany Sherlock seemed to have. “She’s cleverer than you lot and she’s dead! She didn’t lose her phone, she planted it on him!”

Several people in the room seemed a tad less confused than they had been before, but many of them still didn’t quite understand. Astraea understood, though, so she explained while her brother got to typing on his laptop. “She left the phone on purpose so we could track it and get the location of the murderer,” she said as she walked over to her brother and looked over his shoulder at the laptop. Sherlock eventually stood up and John replaced his spot in the chair while they waited to see where the phone was.

Astraea’s eyes widened when it finally revealed the location. “Sherlock, it’s here. Two two one Baker Street,” John said.

“First the suitcase, now the phone. I think we found our killer,” Anderson said.

Sherlock eventually left the flat for some “fresh air” while everyone else tried to figure out if the phone was really in the flat. Astraea sat silently thinking for what felt like a long time. She seemed to have zoned out since she was awakened by John shaking her. “Sorry, I was thinking.” Astraea said.

“Sherlock does a lot of that. I guess you got that gene too,” John joked but Astraea ignored him. She got up and went back to the laptop without a word, refreshing the map to track the phone again.

“My brother is a bloody idiot,” she mumbled. “He got into a cab with the murderer.”

~*~

Astraea and John both ran into opposite buildings to find Sherlock and the murderer. John went into the one on the left and Astraea into the one on the right. Astraea ran around the whole building out of breath as she looked into each of the rooms. “Sherlock, you stupid boy, you better not be dead,” she mumbled as she went door to door, looking into the empty rooms.

A part of her knew that Sherlock was smart enough to get out of whatever situation he was in but another part of her was worried. If the murderer could somehow convince those other victims to kill themselves, she wouldn’t put it passed him to convince Sherlock, who already didn’t seem to care much about his own life.

Astraea eventually looked into a room and saw her brother standing over an injured man, who she assumed was the killer. She opened the door and stepped inside, but didn’t rush to her brother since she could see that the murderer was incapacitated.

“Your sponsor! I want a name!” Sherlock yelled.

“Moriarty!” The killer screamed before passing out. Sherlock turned around and looked at his sister before picking up a pill from the ground and examining it. Astraea stood still for a few seconds before finally walking towards Sherlock to make sure he was okay.

“Were you going to take it?” she asked.

“I just want to know if it was the right one,” Sherlock said. Sherlock always wanted to prove to people he was clever, even if it meant he was risking death. He always wanted to be labeled the smart one, ever since he was old enough to know what smart was.

“He made you choose between two, right?” Astraea asked. Sherlock nodded. “Neither was poison. The poison was in the water. He didn’t offer you any water because this Moriarty guy wants you alive.” Sherlock stood still for a moment, comprehending what his sister had said. She had come up with that theory in just a few seconds just so she could give Sherlock an answer.

“This-this is why I keep you around,” Sherlock said, wrapping his arm over her shoulder and walking with her outside. Astraea was still slightly out of breath from running around the building like a madwoman, but she was happy that Sherlock came out okay.


End file.
